It was suggested in another thread that Hindu and Buddhist scriptures may not accurately reflect the lives of Buddha and Krishna.
I am interested in hearing specifically what scriptures and what parts of these scriptures the denizens of RF feel are flawed or inaccurate with regard to the lives of these two avatara.
Of course there is a lot of embellishment in the life of Krishna, depending on what Indians consider desirable. Sons are considered desirable, for example. So, Krishna had 16,108 wives and 10 sons with each of them (daughters are not mentioned) which would add up to a family of 161,080 male children as far as sons only are concerned.
What nobody seems to consider as relevant but me is for which purpose questions like this are asked. Many newcomer religions claim their founder fulfills messianic or avatar prophecies of older religions. However, at the same time they devalue said older religions, saying their members got it wrong. Jesus did that for example, claiming to be the messiah expected by the Jews, while at the same time stating the Jews had distorted the meaning of their own scriptures which they were / are familiar with. I don't want to point fingers in this forums, but it is very often done by members of a religion starting with B and I don't mean Buddhism.
If I put myself in the place of a member of the religion with B, I'd probably argue that, "
see, your own religion got it wrong about the wives and sons of Krishna, so therefore his teachings in the Bhagavad Gita and in the Bhagavatam may/must be compellingly wrong too.". But it doesn't follow that just because the description of the avatara's life is mythological, his teachings in divine, philosophical or ethical matters must compellingly be wrong or "inaccurate", too. If you follow this argumentation, which also muslims use, you can argue anything. You can argue that Krishna clearly taught faith in UFOs, because UFO's are a big deal nowadays, and that his "true" teachings were just lost or corrupted by his own malicious followers, and now have been luckily re-discovered by an UFO guru of your choice.
I acknowledge that in discussing religious or theological matters, there is no "objective" truth but just a range of opinions, but I think it's worth considering whether such questions are asked with a genuine spirit of promoting understanding between religions or with a possibly hidden motive of undermining or eroding other people's trust in their own faith.